


i don't believe that anybody feels the way i do about you now

by mansgotalimit



Category: Real Person Fiction
Genre: (technically the ending is angsty i guess but i see it as sort of hopeful), Fluff and Angst, M/M, cheeky little non-reunion-fic interlude, yes i know i can't believe it either but don't worry i have like 3 more lined up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25547368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mansgotalimit/pseuds/mansgotalimit
Summary: Noel doesn’t write songs about a lot of people.He writes songs about himself, because why wouldn’t he, he’s fucking brilliant, and he writes songs about his Mam, and sometimes he even writes songs about random girls he’s met once or twice whose names and faces all blend together in his coked-up memories and make him feel full and empty at the same time. A lot of his songs, written in anonymous hotel rooms on one continent or another, he doesn’t even think are about anyone at all, just fictional characters he’s conjured up in his drug-addled mind.Most of them, though, although Noel’s loath to admit it to himself, are about Liam.-wonderwall song fic
Relationships: Liam Gallagher & Noel Gallagher, Liam Gallagher/Noel Gallagher
Comments: 20
Kudos: 42





	i don't believe that anybody feels the way i do about you now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OnTheWrongSideOfTheBed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnTheWrongSideOfTheBed/gifts).



> ok i've fucked around with the timing of canon events in this if you saw it you didn't see it close your eyes 
> 
> this is for the ever wonderful [OnTheWrongSideOfTheBed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnTheWrongSideOfTheBed/pseuds/OnTheWrongSideOfTheBed) who floated this concept to me and then i went absolutely feral on it and wrote nearly 8k of it in one night i hope this isn't too far from what you were thinking although my little 1am brain did go on a few tangents

Noel doesn’t write songs about a lot of people.

He writes songs about himself, because why wouldn’t he, he’s fucking brilliant, and he writes songs about his Mam, and sometimes he even writes songs about random girls he’s met once or twice whose names and faces all blend together in his coked-up memories and make him feel full and empty at the same time. A lot of his songs, written in anonymous hotel rooms on one continent or another, he doesn’t even think are about anyone at all, just fictional characters he’s conjured up in his drug-addled mind. 

Most of them, though, although Noel’s loath to admit it to himself, are about Liam. 

Not every line, mind. Here and there, a mention of living forever, or a lament about not knowing what to do in the morning, or a little quip about sailing together in a yellow submarine. He can’t let it get to Liam’s head, now, can he? He can’t be penning entire songs about the kid. 

That doesn’t stop Liam from snatching every piece of paper out of Noel’s hand when he brings it to Liam to learn, scanning the lines left to right and left to right and then stabbing at the paper triumphantly and going  _ see, there, that’s about me, that is.  _ Noel would always roll his eyes and tell him he was delusional as he grabbed the song back out of Liam’s hands and followed the new dent in the paper to see where Liam had been pointing. 

(He was never wrong.) 

Noel’s not really one for sitting down and writing these things with intent, though, could never compose a ballad. They need imagery, and he’s never been particularly good with metaphors, doesn’t really get the whole simile business either, prefers to stick with candour and bluntness. He thinks it’s part of the charm of his lyrics, really. Nobody would have listened twice to Cigarettes & Alcohol if he’d written  _ why enslave yourself in the capitalist system just to be a rusty spoke in a cog in one of its wheels?  _

The problem in particular is that Noel can’t write like that about Liam without using metaphors. Sure, he can chuck in something that’s clearly about Liam, something that toes the line of brotherhood without spilling over into something more, but he can’t veil what they really are - or, at least, what Liam really is to him - without the help of a metaphor. Noel’s fairly shameless, but even he thinks writing  _ the only way I can tell my brother I love him is with his cock in my mouth  _ would be a step too far lyrically. And might put them in jail, which would put a right dampener on the whole rock-’n’-roll-star thing, and would probably really upset their mam. 

It’s never really been something he’s been too fussed about, though. He writes what he writes, and that’s that. Sure, sometimes when he’s drunk and high and Liam’s standing across a bar, equally intoxicated and chattering animatedly with some locals like he’s known them all his life, eyes lit up with the childlike excitement that hasn’t been beaten out of him yet, Noel’s heart pulls as his fingers tighten around his pint, and he thinks  _ I want to tell the whole fucking world how much I love that kid. _ He can’t, though, can’t do any more than watch Liam across the bar, catch his eye when Liam’s gaze flits to him like he’s the north pole and Liam’s his compass, hold his gaze evenly as he takes a sip of his drink, making Liam’s lips curl up in a small, happy smile and his cheeks get a little pinker. He loves being watched by Noel, loves that Noel wants to watch him, gets off on Noel’s attention like nothing else. Noel won’t give it to him all too often, has to keep the kid in line - only room for one big head in this band, thank you very much - but he thinks it probably makes it all the sweeter when he does, when he just stands there and looks and lets Liam know that he just wants to watch him be. Simply watching Liam exist gets Noel’s heart racing like no drugs he’s ever done, no sex he’s ever had with anyone else. 

It’s not always enough for Liam, though. Sometimes Liam needs more than to be watched, needs those drugs and the sex with people that aren’t Noel to just plug the gap, needs to do something to while away the time. And Noel doesn’t mind, exactly, because he knows he’s the one Liam’s always going to come home to in the morning, but it doesn’t stop him snapping at Liam the next day when he messes up a single syllable, or misses a note, or is a millisecond too late on his tambourine cue. Liam snaps right back, loves pulling on Noel’s push, can’t yet differentiate between love and hate because it all swirls around in his pretty little twenty-two-year-old heart as passion, and it’s all the same to him. He doesn’t get it yet, doesn’t understand what he means to Noel. He thinks it’s all easy, traces patterns on Noel’s chest in the early hours of of the morning and says  _ stop thinking so hard about it, we’re us, innit? We’re us, and I’m yours, and you’re mine, and that’s it.  _ He doesn’t understand yet, hasn’t quite grasped what being hopelessly and irrevocably in love with your brother means when you’re at an age where people are starting to settle down, have kids, talk about mortgages. 

The good thing about that, Noel supposes, is that Liam’s in no danger of doing that himself. He’s not going to tear himself away from Noel’s side, can’t commit to more than three nights with one person, is hardly going to start looking at engagement rings or worrying about the state of the housing market in London. He can’t even remember the names of any of the girls he’s bedded, calls them  _ whatshername  _ or  _ whatsherface _ or  _ thingy, y’know, the one with the great arse, _ and Noel gets a grim sense of satisfaction from it. 

(Sometimes, a hand twisted in Liam’s hair, he’ll pull Liam’s face towards him and growl  _ say my fucking name. _ Liam always does, mewls it, whines it, whimpers it, never fucking forgets it, chants it like a mantra that’s going to get Noel on his knees. 

Well. It does, sometimes.) 

Until one day, when Liam waltzes into the studio with a big fucking grin on his face, eyes lit up with something that Noel recognises but knows he didn’t put there, making his stomach drop. 

“I’ve got a girlfriend,” Liam announces grandly. Bonehead turns around from the amp he’s been fiddling with, arches an eyebrow. 

“Haven’t you got about three now?” he says, and Liam shoves two fingers up at him, still grinning inanely. 

“Dick,” Liam says. “I’m proper serious about her. She’s called Jenny, and she’s dead fucking fit.” Bonehead’s other eyebrow comes up to join the one already raised, and he scoffs good-naturedly. 

“You? Serious?” he says, shaking his head, and then turns back to his amp, an amused smile on his lips, like Liam’s just told a funny joke. Noel doesn’t think there’s anything remotely amusing about the situation. 

“She’s not coming to rehearsals,” he says sharply, and Liam looks over at him for the first time, like he’d almost forgotten Noel was even there. Noel wants to grab him by the throat, pin him up against a wall, get him nice and red in the face and then force him to his knees. 

“Never said she was,” Liam says. 

“Or to my flat,” Noel says, because Liam’s been kipping there half the time, and he’s not having Liam’s bird giggling loudly in the room next door as Liam whispers lewd bullshit into her ear. 

“Got my own fucking flat, don’t I?” Liam says. Noel’s jaw clenches, and he puts his hands on his guitar where they’ll be safe, won’t betray him by socking Liam or pulling him for a fierce kiss. 

“Get to the fucking mic,” he says, and Liam just looks at him a moment longer, and then shrugs and skips - yes, fucking  _ skips _ \- over to the mic. Noel swallows hard, tries not to look at the floor too hard in case the heat in his eyes sets the floorboards on fire, and starts strumming the beginning of Rock ‘n’ Roll Star. It’s not what they said they were going to rehearse, but Noel calls the fucking shots, doesn’t he, and if Liam’s going to go off and get himself a girlfriend, Noel’s going to have to remind him whose he is, who he answers to. Get a bit of control back, he thinks, as Bonehead and Guigsy fall in behind him, Tony a little slow on the uptake, and Liam scowls but doesn’t say anything about it. 

Good, Noel thinks a little icily, as his fingers hit the strings perfectly, mind focused by anger. He doesn’t know what he would have done if Liam hadn’t obeyed his silent order. 

\-------

Jenny, much to Noel’s dismay, is fucking brilliant. 

She’s hilarious, laid-back, offers them her coke, really is dead fucking fit, and calms Liam down when he gets too agitated. She lets Noel steal him away from her whenever he likes - which he does a lot in the first few weeks, pressing Liam against riskier and riskier walls, in an alleyway next to the pub and in the corridor between their rehearsal room and whatever other miserable fucking band are playing on the other side, and then starts to feel a little guilty about. He wonders whether she can taste two sets of Gallagher DNA when she she smiles up at Liam and kisses him as he slides back into the booth, but if she does, she never says anything, never does anything more than smile kindly up at Noel and say  _ I’m glad Liam’s got you, y’know.  _ Noel wants to return the compliment, if only to be polite, but the words can’t form on his tongue. He’s not glad, at all. 

He’d thought it might pass, that Liam would get bored of her like he gets bored of fucking everyone that isn’t Noel, but a week turns into a month which turns into two, three, four, and it seems relentless, seems like no amount of rehearsing or touring is enough to make Liam forget about her. Even when they’re five timezones apart, Liam’ll spring up in the middle of the night to call her before she goes to work, rush home from dinner to make sure he catches her before she goes to sleep, even once stopped mid-way through sucking Noel off to answer a call. It’s fucking infuriating, makes Noel fuck him harder and faster and wordlessly, not giving Liam anything more than a cold stare as he does, because the kid’s breaking his fucking heart. 

And Noel only knows one way to deal with a broken heart that isn’t burying the shards deep inside Liam, so one night, drunk and stoned and sat on his own in their hotel room after Liam’s skipped out on dinner to call Jenny again, he pulls a pen, paper and guitar towards him and starts to write. 

Broken hearts are fucking complicated at the best of times, but Noel’s is a shattered labyrinth, so many pieces littering its twisting corridors that even he doesn’t know its original path. It’s suffocating, the jagged chunks piercing at his lungs in a way that chokes him up and keeps him from sharing his burden, because he can’t explain to anyone that the cracks and fragments are all because of his brother, mended and broken and mended and broken. Noel uses the strings on his instrument to tiptoe around the pieces, to forge himself a new path, but it’s never the same, and it’s still an empty echo of the fiery trail that Liam can blaze whenever he’s in the mood to be Noel’s. Maybe Noel’s just been too passive about it, though, stood a little too far back and let Liam decide when he wants to be Noel’s. Maybe he needs to  _ make _ Liam his, to pick up all those hints and questions and glances that Liam throws his way and knit them all together to create an answer for him, a  _ yes, Liam, I’m fucking in love with you _ that he’s never quite been able to say yet. Maybe Liam’s putting the ball in his court now, setting it down and saying  _ alright, look, I’ve tried my best, it’s your turn to fight for us now.  _

_ Today is gonna be the day that he’s gonna throw it back to you, _ he writes. No, he’s not drunk enough for that, pours himself another glass of whiskey and knocks it back as he scribbles out the ‘he’s’ so viciously that it tears the paper and replaces it with a ‘they’re’.  _ By now, you should’ve somehow realised what you gotta do. _

Maybe he should have, he thinks a little hazily, strumming a chord on the guitar perched on his lap and humming along idly, the tune finding its way from his mind to his throat in seconds. Maybe he should have realised sooner that Liam just wants to be chased, isn’t content with Noel’s middle ground, with Noel watching him across the bar. Maybe this is all Liam’s long-winded way of saying  _ I don’t feel like you’re all mine, so I’m not going to be all yours, either.  _

Fucking Jenny, Noel thinks a little bitterly, and pours himself a little more whiskey; he’s fine, Irish stock, he can handle it. She loves Liam, Noel’s sure of it, can see it in her sparkling eyes and the way she puts her hand on Liam’s, but she doesn’t love him  _ right. _ Her eyes don’t glint with a mixture of love and a challenge like Liam needs, and she doesn’t thread her fingers through Liam’s when she rests her hand on top of his, and she doesn’t rip herself open at the seams, tear each atom from its place and reassemble herself for Liam. Only Noel does that. Jenny might bring Liam the sun, if he asked, but Noel would bring him the stars and the moon as well. 

_ I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now, _ he jots, drunk and courageous. He barely even notices the shift from second to first person, how much of his soul is seeping out through the ink of the pen, just thinks with grim satisfaction  _ this is the closest I’ll get to telling him I’m in love with him. _ It doesn’t even feel as scary as he’d thought it would, having the words in black and white. Maybe it’s because they’re not too revealing, something that only Liam will truly understand, but he knows it’ll still get him looks from Guigsy and Tony, raised eyebrows from Bonehead, maybe even a question or two from Alan. It feels strangely like a breath of fresh air, though, like a weight lifted off his shoulders that he hadn’t even realised he’d been stooping under the weight of. It’s almost a relief, really, like  _ there, that’s it, it’s out there now.  _ Fuck, if he’d known it was going to feel like he could breathe again, he might’ve swallowed his pride a lot sooner. 

_ Backbeat, the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out, _ he writes, caught in the moment of exhilaration, as close as he’ll get to saying  _ do you still love me? _ like Liam does at least once a week.  _ You’re silly, you are, _ he’ll get in response sometimes, when Noel’s in a good mood, or  _ piss off, you cunt _ if he isn’t. They have the same etymology, though;  _ why would you even need to ask?  _

_ I’m sure you’ve heard it all before but you never really had a doubt. _ It’s not like they haven’t been on this precipice before, is it? Liam finding a new girl, fucking her a few times, Noel standing green-eyed and furious on the sidelines and everybody looking between the two of them without a handy little guidebook to incest to read the situation and going  _ is this it? Is this the end of Oasis? Are you two ever going to get along? _ Liam had always cracked, though, couldn’t keep his hands to himself for more than three weeks at a time, and then always came running back to Noel. When that geezer said that thing about the certainties of life being death and taxes, he forgot a third: Liam coming back to Noel like a fucking boomerang. 

_ I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now, _ Noel writes again, because fuck it, it can’t hurt to reinforce it, can it? The little fucker always needs to be told everything at least three times, anyway - bus call’s at six, Liam, that’s fucking six, did you hear me, six o’clock on the fucking dot, and so help me God I’m going to give myself special dispensation to murder you if you’re so much as a minute late - so it probably won’t sink in unless Noel waves it in his face like a big red flag that has  _ I’m in love with my little brother _ emblazoned on it. 

The melody’s flowing from his mind to his fingers, his heart and soul twisting its way out on the six strings of his guitar, the necessary layer of removal between Noel and his feelings. Or maybe Noel’s feelings and Liam, Noel’s not entirely sure. It just feels easier, somehow, when it’s written down in chords and words that Noel can ascribe any particular meaning to in the press, can say is about John Lennon or Bono or the fucking Queen, when it’s not so close and intimate like Liam pressed up against him, an arm slung around Noel’s waist, and Noel unable to help himself tightening his fingers on Liam’s hip. It’d be easier, maybe, if they didn’t have to do it like this, if they could just talk, but that’s never been them. Neither of them know the right words, the right phrases, the right combination of letters, and they’d given up on trying to locate them a long time ago. 

_ And all the roads we have to walk are winding, _ Noel writes, thinking of those twisting paths they have to take to communicate with each other. The notes and the lyrics are the very paving stones under their feet, the gigs and fans the floodlights lighting the way for them.  _ And all the lights that lead us there are blinding. _ Liam doesn’t need to know that he’s the most blinding of them all. 

_ There are many things that I would like to say to you but I don’t know how. _

Oddly, Noel thinks, as he downs his glass of whiskey and starts reaching for the bottle again before it’s even burnt its way down his throat, that feels like the most revealing line.  _ I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now  _ \- that’s his heart, the fragments torn apart by Liam trying to piece themselves back together in front of his very eyes, but this, this is his soul. He’s never once admitted that he  _ wants _ to talk to Liam, that he  _ wants _ this to be easier, that he  _ wants _ to be able to tell him  _ I love you, I love you, I fucking love you, you bastard, _ just doesn’t know how to go about it. He doesn’t have the words, for starters, and he doesn’t have the patience, and he doesn’t have the courage. He doesn’t know how he would ever tear his own soul out of his body, pat it down into a little ball and hold it in his hands to show Liam, and it feels incredibly revealing to admit that he doesn’t know how to do that, like he’s admitting some kind of a flaw or weakness, making himself vulnerable for Liam to see. 

But he’s already vulnerable with Liam, and both of them know it. He lets Liam see him in a way that no one else gets to, in the late-night moonlight and the early-morning sun, when his heart is full and his soul feels settled, when he’s gazing at Liam and thinking  _ you’re it, y’know. You’re everything.  _ He doesn’t hide it when it crosses his face, doesn’t try and tamp it down or hold it back, lets himself step into it and tilts his head back into the warm rays of the sun as a small smile curls his lips upwards, and as Liam’s fingers find their way between Noel’s own. He’s disarmed, then, naked and exposed in more ways than one, and it’s his deepest sign of trust. He can never be like that with anyone else, barely even waits two minutes after the sex is over before snapping back into business mode and turfing them out or calling himself a cab. Liam’s the only one who sees the raw parts of Noel, his essence, the bits he can’t warp or change or create a convincing illusion for so just hides instead. 

_ Because maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me, _ Noel writes. He’s not quite sure what he means himself - maybe that Liam’s what he needs to be whole, maybe that Liam’s the only one who can stop him from taking them on a trajectory that they can never return from - but he thinks Liam will understand. It’s strange, that, that Liam can understand things about Noel that even Noel doesn’t get, but it’s also gently reassuring, a soft cushion around the edges of Noel’s jagged self.  _ And after all you’re my wonderwall. _

It’s an odd concept, the wonderwall. Noel had seen it on a poster once, something about George Harrison writing the music for a movie, but the word had always stuck with him. He’s still not entirely sure what it means, but he kind of likes it that way. It feels a lot more Liam, because Noel’s still not entirely sure what he’s all about, either. He’s so predictably unpredictable, pressed up against Noel and stealing kisses every two minutes one day and half a stage away calling him a cunt the next. It’s better that way, though, keeps Noel on his toes. And it doesn’t hurt that Noel knows both ends of the scale are still motivated by a deep-seated desire for Noel’s attention, whether it be from fucking or fighting. Liam just can’t seem to decide where he wants to be half the time, whether he wants to be in between the crisp sheets of Noel’s bed or sat opposite him in a hospital waiting room, both with frozen peas pressed to their heads. It’s exhausting sometimes, the constant push and pull, but Noel doesn’t know any different and he doesn’t think Liam does either. It’s just how they’re wired, Noel thinks, as he scribbles down the chords he’s been idly picking out on the guitar. They’re not made to work in tandem. 

Not working in tandem throws up its whole own set of problems, though. It’s the constant struggle that the band is built on, that the two of them are built on, but that puts an expiry date on them, because at some point one of them’s going to push or pull too hard and fall right off the ledge. It’s not like they don’t have an expiry date anyway, Noel thinks bitterly, swirling the whiskey around in his tumbler but not drinking just yet. It’s not like Noel can just fuck his brother until the end of time. 

It sort of hurts, when he thinks about that. It makes him think  _ is this really worth it? Wouldn’t it be better to just nip it in the bud now, save us a few decades of heartache? _ Fuck knows Noel’s gone through enough heartache for Liam in the past four years alone, let alone the next forty. He’s not sure whether he was built to weather that storm, whether his defences will hold out. Maybe it’d be better if he just stopped it now, let Liam waltz off with Jenny into their white-picket-fence future, and gave himself some time to try and patch himself up. 

_ Today was gonna be the day but they’ll never throw it back to you, _ he writes, hoping the words don’t look as maudlin on paper as they sound in his mind.  _ By now you should’ve somehow realised what you’re not to do. _ Because that’s just it, isn’t it? He’s somehow made it to the big fucking age of twenty-seven, almost twenty-eight, without it sinking in that he shouldn’t be fucking his little brother, shouldn’t be in love with his little brother. He knows it, knows it on the outer layers of his brain and the part of his soul that’s in it for the music, to get his songs heard, but it’s not quite dawned on the rest of him yet. He shouldn’t be in love with his brother, shouldn’t want to wake up next to him in the morning and do his laundry in the afternoon and cook him dinner in the evening and fuck him at night, but he does. He wants it more than anything in the fucking world, more than any drug, than any woman, than any show or any record. He wants Liam like nothing else, and like no one else will ever want Liam. Nobody will ever be able to give Liam what Noel can, to be to Liam what Noel can be. Nobody will ever be able to love Liam like Noel does. 

_ I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now, _ Noel writes again, and then sits back. That’s three times now, that is, so Liam should get the fucking message. And it’s a good fucking song, Noel thinks, as he scribbles a  _ repeat chorus _ at the bottom of the paper, too lazy to write the words out again. It’s a good song because it’s Liam’s song, the curves of the letters formed with the scraps of Noel’s heart and soul. 

Noel sets the guitar aside, folds up the paper and sticks it in his pocket, and downs the last tumbler of whiskey. Liam’ll be back soon, he thinks as he stumbles to the bathroom to get ready for bed, and Noel wants to pretend to be asleep before he comes in, lest he try and talk about fucking Jenny and her job and her cats and her mates and her tits again. 

Liam pads in softly all of fifteen minutes later, clicking the door shut softly behind him when he sees Noel lying on his side, breathing uncannily even. He seems to hesitate for a moment, because there’s no noise at all, and then Noel feels a weight dipping his bed, and feels a body nestling up against his, pressed close against Noel’s back, head resting in the space between Noel’s shoulder and head. Liam wraps an arm around Noel’s waist and pulls him closer, presses a soft, uncharacteristically tender kiss to Noel’s temple, and then lets his hand wind its way up to Noel’s heart, beating far too fast for him to be asleep. The cunt knows, but he doesn’t say anything about it, just noses into Noel’s neck, letting out a contented sigh, and brings his hand down to slide his fingers in between Noel’s. 

“Night,” he whispers, squeezing Noel’s hand, and Noel can’t help but squeeze back. 

\-------

When it comes to selecting the songs for an album, Liam’s always a  _ fucking _ nightmare. 

(“I don’t like this one,” he’ll say, pointing at one of the songs Noel’s carefully selected for the tracklist. 

“I don’t care,” Noel will say. “Doesn’t matter what you think, as long as it makes us a lot of money.” 

“I’m not singing it like that,” Liam will say, pointing at another song. “I’m going to sing it like this.”

“Right, fine,” Noel will say, as patiently as possible, “but it goes like that, not like this.”)

This time, though, it’s even worse, because Noel wants to sing two songs on the album - one he’s been so excited about since the moment he wrote it that he’s been humming it for about a month straight, and the one he’d written about Liam last week just before they went into the studio - and Liam’s not having it. 

“You’re not singing two fucking songs,” he says indignantly. “What am I, a spare fucking part?”

“You’re still singing the fucking rest of them,” Noel says. 

“I’m the fucking  _ singer, _ ” Liam says, pointing at himself. “What the fuck am I s’posed to do if I’m not singing?” 

“I don’t fucking know, curl your hair, I’m arsed,” Noel says, and Liam scowls. “It’s only two songs, Liam.” 

“You can have one,” Liam says. “I’ll let you have one.” 

“ _ Let _ me?” Noel echoes incredulously. Liam tilts his chin up in the way he does when he’s picked a hill to die on, and nods. 

“Yeah, let you,” he says. “I’m the singer, me, I decide what gets sung and who’s singing it.”

“I wrote the fucking songs,” Noel says, incensed. 

“Yeah? And what, they’re written now, aren’t they? Job done. I’m fucking singing them,” Liam says. He’s fucking impossible. 

“Fine,” Noel says, because fucking whatever, he’s not  _ that _ arsed about singing them. “Pick one, then.” 

“Play them to me.” 

“No. Pick one.” 

“How am I meant to choose if I don’t know what they sound like?” 

“Not my problem.” He’s just doing it to be difficult, digging his heels in wherever he can just to get a rise out of Liam. 

“Don’t be a cunt,” Liam says, which is fucking rich, coming from him. 

“You’re one to talk,” Noel remarks, and holds out two sheets of paper. “Pick one.” Liam snatches them both out of his hands, squints at the lyrics for Don’t Look Back In Anger and then scans the lyrics for Wonderwall, eyes slowly widening as he reads. 

“This one,” he says, and shoves Don’t Look Back In Anger back at Noel without tearing his gaze away from Wonderwall. 

“Fine,” Noel says shortly, and turns on his heel to head back to the live room where his guitar is propped against a table waiting for him.

“This is about me,” Liam says, following behind him. 

“No it’s not, you self-obsessed prick,” Noel says. He’s not about to give Liam that satisfaction when he’s being such a twat. 

“It is,” Liam insists. “Look, hang on, here-” 

“I know what the fucking words are, Liam,” Noel says, abruptly and irritably, pushing open the door to the courtyard they have to cross. 

“No, listen-” 

“It’s not about you, Liam,” Noel snaps, spinning around to fix Liam with a cold glare. Liam holds his gaze, fire meeting ice. 

“Yeah, it is,” he says evenly. Noel hates him, he really does. 

“Piss off,” he says, and turns back around. “Go to the pub, whatever, just fuck off. I don’t want to see you here again today.” 

“I’m fucking living here,” Liam calls, but his voice sounds further away, so Noel knows he’s not following behind anymore, which means he’s going to do what Noel wants. “Where the fuck am I meant to go?” 

“Fucking find somewhere else to stay,” Noel shouts back, wrenching the door to the studio open. “Go find another slag’s bed to warm tonight.” He slams the door shut behind him before Liam has a chance to respond, and takes a moment to collect himself before heading into the live room. Guigs and Bonehead are already there, but exchange a concerned look when they see the foul look on Noel’s face. 

“Get out,” Noel says. “I’m recording.” They look like they want to argue for a minute, but Noel fixes them with one final glare and they seem to decide that Noel’s not going to be good company for the foreseeable future, and vacate the room so it’s only Noel and the engineer left. 

Jesus Christ, Noel thinks, as he picks up his guitar and lets it soothe his racing heart. Liam’s going to be the fucking death of him, one way or another. 

\-------

Don’t Look Back In Anger sounds great, only needs a few tweaks before it’s ready for a full band version, and Noel’s in a considerably better mood when he leaves the studio. 

That is, until he bumps straight into Liam as he’s walking out. 

“Play it to me,” he says. 

“Didn’t I tell you to piss off?” Noel says, and tries to shoulder past him. Liam uses the two inches he has on Noel to his advantage, plants his feet, and repeats himself. 

“Play it to me.”

“I’ll fucking play it to you when I play it to you,” Noel says, and tries to get past Liam again. Liam, though, like he’s got part of Noel’s soul clenched tightly in his fist, anticipates his movements, and steps in the direction Noel moves in. 

“Please.” That has Noel faltering, because Liam doesn’t usually beg. Or, well, he does, but not until Noel’s had him on his knees or been between his legs for at least ten minutes. 

“Why?” Noel says, sighing.

“Because it’s about me.” 

“It’s not about you, Jesus Christ,” Noel mutters, and tries to push past Liam again. Liam won’t let him budge, and Noel rocks back on his heels, stares up at Liam with furious eyes. 

“Let me past,” he says. 

“Play me the song.” 

“Fucking let me past.”

“Play me the fucking song.” Noel wants to scream. 

“Let me past,” he says, voice low and heavy with a threat, “or I’ll fucking split your face in half.” 

“You wouldn’t,” Liam says, blinking serenely. “You like my face too much for that.” He’s got a point - Noel always fusses over the black eyes and split lips he gives Liam when the anger’s abated - but that doesn’t stop the rage from overshadowing how much Noel wants to worship every cell on Liam’s face when Liam’s been worming his fingers into Noel’s many buttons. 

“Hasn’t stopped me before, has it?” Noel says, and Liam opens his mouth, and then frowns, closes it, and takes a small step back. Victory, Noel thinks grimly, and makes to stride past Liam. 

“Please,” Liam says again, softer this time, more pleading, and Noel stops mid-step, head twisting to look back at Liam before the thought to do so has even crossed his mind. Liam’s staring at him, blue eyes wide and beseeching, and Noel’s never been able to say no to those eyes, incontrovertible evidence of their shared DNA. 

“It’s not about you,” he says again. 

“Just play it to me,” Liam says, and blinks once, slow and controlled, and Noel cracks. He sighs, sags, turns back to the studio, and says, “Alright.” 

He doesn’t turn back to see the beaming smile that he’s certain is sprawled across Liam’s face, can’t stand to see the irrefutable evidence of his defeat, just beelines for the studio, flicks the light switch, and sits down on the sofa heavily as he picks up his guitar. Liam sits down next to him, a foot too close, blue eyes dark and intent, focused on Noel’s face rather than what his fingers are doing. 

It’s not that late, early enough that everyone’s still awake and probably watching TV and getting drunk and high in the main building, but late enough that it’s dark outside and the room feels smaller than it does during the day when it’s busy and the door’s slamming open and shut every few minutes. It feels intimate, sort of, just his and Liam’s breathing in the silence of the room, nothing but a guitar between the two of them. 

Liam’s watching him so intently, so expectantly, that Noel can’t do anything but start to play, can’t preface it with another  _ this really fucking isn’t about you, y’know, _ just has to let the words speak for him. And they do, they sound fucking gorgeous ringing out in the room and mingling with Liam’s breathing, like they were made to slot between his inhales and exhales. It’s not an acoustic song, sounds too melancholy with just a guitar and a voice, but it works right now, gives Noel a platform to let the words really dredge up the shrapnel of his heart and form it into something beautiful. 

Liam just listens, doesn’t say a word, but Noel sings to him, holds his gaze as he sings  _ I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now,  _ and watches Liam’s lips part in something that looks like both awe and surprise. His eyes flit to Noel’s fingers now and then, to his lips a little more often, but generally don’t stray from his eyes, blue on blue, blinking at each other as Noel’s words settle between them. 

Noel lets the final chord ring out for a few seconds before he stills the strings and puts the guitar down. Usually, he’d want a barrier between himself and Liam, something that he can cling to if Liam likes the song and bash him over the head with if he doesn’t, but this time it feels like an obstacle rather than a lifeboat. 

“Oh,” Liam says, and there’s so much gravity in the word that Noel’s vision swims a little as he straightens up from setting the guitar down and looks at Liam again. His eyes are wide, lips still slightly parted, cheeks flushed a little pink. 

“You can do that one tomorrow, before you forget it,” Noel says. “I’ll shuffle up the schedule.” Liam just blinks at him. 

“It’s about me,” he says, matter-of-fact. Noel doesn’t see the point in lying about it now, not when he’s got Liam looking so shocked and pretty, so impressed and in love. 

“Yeah,” he says. Liam blinks at him. 

“You bastard,” he says evenly, and Noel can’t help the way his lips curve up in a smile. 

“Yeah.” Liam looks at him for a moment, just a split second, and then he’s smiling too, soft and happy. 

“You love me,” he says. 

“On occasion,” Noel says. 

“You loved me when you wrote this.” Noel shrugs.

“Yeah.” 

“D’you mean it now?”    
  
“Mean what?” Noel’s the master of evasion. 

“D’you still love me like that?” Liam’s the master of picking at loose threads. 

“Like what?”

“Like no one else.” And the master of understanding Noel. Which is the point, really, because the song won’t mean anything to anyone else but Liam. Nobody will understand it like Liam does, because nobody understands Noel like Liam does. 

(Well, maybe also partly because nobody else knows about the fact that Noel’s head over heels in love with his own brother, but whatever.) 

“What do you think?” Noel says, but he doesn’t mean it to be evasive. He means  _ do you think I’d do this for just anyone? Do you think I’d write a song like that about just anyone?  _

“I think you do,” Liam says, and the soft smile on his lips turns into a full-on fond grin. Noel can’t help the warm feeling that blossoms in his chest at that, at the fact that Noel loving Liam makes him that happy. Christ, he’s going soft. 

“You know I do,” he says. Fucking hell. Old age is getting to him. What the fuck is he going to be like when he’s properly old, if he’s this gone for Liam at twenty-seven?

Liam shuffles closer to him, cups Noel’s jaw, somehow manages to blink up at him even though he’s taller. His fingers are warm and soft against Noel’s skin, and Noel can feel his heartbeat in his thumb. It’s thudding rhythmically, calmly, and nothing makes Noel’s skin feel more alight than the fact that Liam feels so safe with him. 

“You’ve never written a song about me before,” he says, and there’s wonder in his tone. 

“Aye.” 

“Why now?” Noel can’t help the small grimace that finds its way onto his face, and Liam catches it, eyes narrowing shrewdly. “Jenny.” Well, Noel thinks, tilting his head into Liam’s hand, forcing himself closer, always closer. No point denying it now, is there? He’s just sung the kid a fucking heartbroken, jealous ballad. 

He doesn’t deny it, but he doesn’t confirm it, just says nothing and waits for Liam to pick up where he’d left off. Liam purses his lips, wrinkles his nose like he’s thinking hard, and then his hand drops from Noel’s face into his lap. 

“You know she’s not you,” he says, and the words come out like he’s been struggling with them. 

“Yeah,” Noel says.  _ That’s the problem. _

“No,” Liam says, trying again. “She’s not you. She could never be you.” 

“Are you sure it’s that way round?”  _ Are you sure it isn’t that I could never be her?  _

“I’m sure.” Noel lets the words roll around in his head for a moment, lets their weight sink into the fabric of his mind. 

“Poor girl,” he says eventually, and Liam shrugs. 

“Think she was getting bored of me, anyway,” he says. Noel can’t believe that. He’s known Liam longer than anyone but two other people and he’s still discovering new things about him everyday, finding new chemical reactions that Liam can set off in his mind and his heart (and his cock). 

“Don’t blame her,” he says, and Liam doesn’t even have it in him to scowl, on too much of a high from the fact that Noel’s written a song about him, and that it’s  _ that. _ He brings his hand back up to Noel’s face but winds it around Noel’s neck this time, fingers curling in the hair at the nape of it, and pulls himself closer to Noel until they’re all of half a foot apart. 

“Say it,” he says. 

“Say what?” 

“What you said in the song.” Oh.  _ Oh.  _

“I say it all the time,” Noel says, which isn’t strictly true, but isn’t quite a lie, either. He’s definitely told Liam he loves him in the past, at least once or twice, so it just depends on what definition of ‘all the time’ he’s choosing to use, really. 

“Do you fuck,” Liam says, but it’s too soft to be a scoff. Somewhere, in the back of Noel’s mind, he registers that this is the most tender moment they’ve had in years, the longest they’ve gone without fucking or fighting. He might as well say it now, he thinks, because God knows when the next interlude is going to come. He might be on his deathbed by then. 

“I love you,” Noel says, and the words feel somewhere between right and wrong as they tumble from his lips. 

“Say it properly,” Liam insists, like he’s fucking five asking Noel to do the voices in his bedtime stories again. Noel rolls his eyes, can’t help himself - Liam’s so fucking spoilt - but acquiesces, wraps an arm around Liam’s waist and pulls him closer. Anyone could walk in right now and see the two of them in this moment, unmistakably intimate, unmistakably non-brotherly, and it makes something hot rise up in Noel’s chest, a mix of fear and trepidation and impatience all wrapped up in love and tied neatly with a ribbon of adoration. He’d do fucking anything for Liam, put his reputation and life on the line just to see him smile. 

“I’m in love with you,” Noel says, and Liam’s face splits into a grin, big and broad and brighter than Noel’s ever seen him smile before. 

“Yeah?” he says, and he sounds shy when he says it, sounds like that teenager that trailed behind Noel everywhere he went and didn’t speak a word to anyone that wasn’t his brother. 

“Yeah,” Noel says, stomach flipping and warming as the image of Liam’s smile gets transmitted from his eyes around the rest of his body. His fingers curl around Liam’s waist, pulling him even closer, half into Noel’s lap, and Liam goes easily, moves until he’s only an inch or so away from Noel’s face. 

“You’ve never said it like that before,” Liam says. 

“Neither have you,” Noel points out. Liam blinks, like it’s only just occurred to him, and then the smile’s back on his face, eyes crinkled at the corners in the way that he only gets with Noel.  _ You’re going to give me wrinkles, _ he always says, when Noel says something that makes him laugh particularly hard, or that makes him smile like a fool, but Noel knows he loves it really, wants to be marked up with indisputable evidence of Noel. 

“Yeah, but you know, don’t you?” Liam says, and Noel rolls his eyes. 

“Doesn’t mean it’s not nice to hear, though,” he says, and Liam’s smile gets impossibly wider. 

“You soft git,” he says, and Noel scowls, but he knows it hasn’t reached his eyes from the way Liam tilts his head a little, eyes flitting to Noel’s lips and back to his eyes again, and Noel knows what’s coming next. 

“Well?” he prompts, and Liam rolls his eyes, still smiling. 

“I’m in love with you too, you soppy cunt,” Liam says, and closes the gap between the two of them.

\-------

(In years to come, Noel will hear endless stories about people dancing to Wonderwall at their weddings. It’ll hurt, because in their best days, strung out and sleep-deprived and high on each other, him and Liam would dance to it too, around their dingy hotel rooms, laughing and smiling and swaying together, kissing languidly to the sound of Noel’s confession spilling from Liam’s lips. Unlike the couples, though, Noel and Liam were confined to their prison, to the four walls and mucky window that would hold their secret for them. 

Well, Noel will think, as he smiles at yet another radiant couple gushing about having their first dance to his ode to Liam. At least the song can bring happiness to others, even if it didn’t work for them. At least the monuments of their love survived, even if their love itself didn’t.

And whenever he sees a picture of Liam in the papers he’ll count the wrinkles around his eyes, just to make sure there aren’t any new ones since the last time Noel saw him.

There never are.) 


End file.
